Culture

If you have not spent a great deal of time on the internet, you will probably know the British actress Jameela Jamil for her starring role in the popular comedy series The Good Place, or alternatively from her appearance in the Marvel miniseries She Hulk: Attorney at Law.  However, for the terminally online, Jamil is either a savior who is unafraid to say controversial things that her peers would shy away from, or someone whose batshit crazy utterances are given far too much attention given her modest celebrity status.  The latest of her pronouncements is on Brexit, ten years on, along with sundry instances of racism and horror in her home country. Jamil declared that “Britain is fucked. It doesn’t feel as though I’m going back to some haven.

It is dangerous to be a Jewish artist in France. On Saturday, the well-known DJ Barbara Butch was forced to abandon her performance during a music festival in the Alpine city of Grenoble. Butch is an icon of the LGBT movement and best-known, among international audiences, for appearing in the "Last Supper" skit during the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics. On that occasion the 45-year-old Butch infuriated conservative figures on both sides of the Atlantic with her irreverence. Donald Trump labeled the parody a "disgrace," as did the Vatican, which deplored "the offense done to many Christians and believers of other religions." On Saturday, it was the far-left who took offense to the presence of Butch.

Is the looksmaxxer a morality tale for our time – a sort of Hogarthian parable about everything, or at least some of the main things, that ail us as a society in 2026? After all, could there be a greater indictment of the vanity of the vainest society in history than a young man who devotes his entire waking life to improving his appearance, and not only that, documents every second on camera for a legion of adoring fans and imitators? An otherwise perfectly handsome, fortunate young man obsessing so much over his looks that he spends a portion of each day hitting his face with a small rock hammer.  The modern individual is concerned with optimizing himself without limits, without any goal beyond optimization itself There are other, darker, interpretations of looksmaxxing.

Inflation drives us to think ahead: plan out grocery trips, buy in bulk, carpool. One young man had an unorthodox way of funding his summer road-trip across America as gas got more expensive: he constructed a life-size pear on his moped.  Twenty-four-year-old Andrew Glubbey has 19,000 followers on his Instagram account, @glubbey. His profile has grown since the start of the road trip as he adventures in his self-built pear car from Florida to Washington State.  “I've talked to a lot of people that are like, ‘I could never do that or I would never do that with that kind of thing’,” Glubbey tells me.

The Pilgrims’ journey from Plymouth, England to Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts did not happen as it was meant to. The Mayflower had twice tried to leave for the New World before she managed it. Twice she set out with her companion ship, the Speedwell, and twice the Speedwell began taking on water, forcing the two ships back to England. The second return brought them to Plymouth, where the Speedwell then remained. The Mayflower would have to brave the Atlantic crossing alone. After 66 stormy days, the Mayflower reached Cape Cod, more than 600 miles north of her original destination of Jamestown. She tried to sail south to Virginia, where she was expected, but relentless storms blew her back up the coast.

Whatever shape the 250th anniversary celebrations take, two things are certain. First, they will very prominently feature our 47th President and, second, there will be fervent renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at every opportunity. Whereas Donald Trump will not face any time limits on his oration during his headline slot at the promised rally on the National Mall – he has two and a half centuries to cover, after all – the anthem-singing will be cut short, as usual, after one verse, and will certainly not extend to the third, which expresses the fervent hope that, “no refuge could save the hireling and slave; From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.” For me, the words always evoke a glow of family pride.

It was a sticky night at the lower east side menswear store "Le Pere," where dozens of downtown New York's sceney regulars filled the room to see the viral phenomenon “Woah Vicky” read her original poems. Publicist Mitchell Jackson has a nose for this generation’s enfants terribles – besides Vicky herself, a few of his clients dotted the crowd, including playwright Matt Gasda and the memoirist Caroline Calloway. The reading drew the usual familiar faces, including celebrity photographer Matthew Weinberger, Byline co-founder Gutes Guterman, and writers Mackenzie Thomas and Michael Crumplar. Woah Vicky, the marquee reader of the evening, is a 26-year-old influencer from Atlanta, who first became famous as a teenager for a string of racial controversies and celebrity feuds.